Cotidiano de uma brasileira em Paris, comentarios sobre cultura, politica e besteiras em geral. Entre le faible et le fort c'est la liberté qui opprime et la loi qui libère." Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Friday, June 3, 2011

Can I have some fries with that Seawolf?

Yes, this is just because I love submarines so much, and have just read about this one:

The Seawolf class is a class of nuclear-powered fast attack submarines (SSN) in service with the United States Navy. The class was the intended successor to the Los Angeles class, ordered at the end of the Cold War in 1989. At one time, an intended fleet of 29 submarines was to be built over a ten-year period, later reduced to twelve submarines. The end of the Cold War and budget constraints led to the cancellation in 1995 of any further additions to the fleet, leaving the Seawolf class limited to just three boats. This, in turn, led to the design of the smaller Virginia class.


Compared to previous Los Angeles class submarines, Seawolf subs are larger, faster, and significantly quieter; they also carry more weapons and have twice as many torpedo tubes, for a total of 8. As a result of their advanced design, however, Seawolf subs were much more expensive. They were intended to combat the then-threat of large numbers of advanced Soviet ballistic missile submarines such as the Typhoon class and attack submarines such as the Akula class in a deep ocean environment.
Seawolf hulls were constructed from HY-100 steel, rather than the weaker HY-80 steel employed in previous classes, to better withstand water pressure at greater depths.[3][4] The boats also have extensive equipment for shallow-water operations, including a floodable silo (I want!!!) capable of simultaneously deploying eight combat swimmers and their equipment. The boats carry up to 50UGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles for attacking land and sea surface targets.
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The class uses the more advanced ARCI Modified AN/BSY-2 combat system, which includes a new, larger spherical sonar array, a wide aperture array (WAA), and a new towed-array sonar. Each boat is powered by a single S6W nuclear reactor, delivering 52,000 hp (39 MW) to a low-noise pump-jet.


Manmade dolphin or shark

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